Health insurance plans are well known. Medicare, for example, is a publicly-funded health insurance plan that generally covers medical expenses for people over some pre-determined age or having some pre-determined condition. Privately-funded health insurance plans also are known. Conventional plans, whether publicly- or privately-funded generally will provide coverage for outpatient or nursing home care, including payment for services rendered and reimbursement for products used in conjunction with services.
To receive their reimbursements, caregivers generally submit a claim and often supporting documentation to the insurance provider. The insurance provider then determines whether the service and/or products are covered by the policy, and pays and/or reimburses the caregiver, as appropriate. Medicare, for example, maintains and provides lists of services and products that will be reimbursed for treatment of specific maladies.
However, the inventors have found that many institutions, and particularly many nursing homes, are ill-equipped to receive maximum reimbursements, especially for day-to-day medical devices, such as bandages, dressings, and other disposable goods. Because no system exists for maximizing these reimbursements, such nursing homes generally consider the costs of these items to be normal operating expenses, or more likely, pass along the costs of these items to the patient.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a system for and method of maximizing reimbursements for patient care. There also is a need in the art for a method of selecting a reimbursable medical device for treating a patient.